What are you fighting for?
by Darkhymns
Summary: "A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy."
When Sans was little, he used to love messing with the card castles that Papyrus would try to make. A creation of precision and care, yet just one little careless shift of the table, or motion of the hand, and it would all come crashing down. This was before he'd let Papyrus enough alone in his endeavors, with his snow sculptures, his culinary experimentation, and his crafty ways of puzzle patterns. Sans had been very young, only fascinated with the way the cards fell, how each separate piece was torn free from a unifying creation, ignorant to his baby brother's crying. It was just how he was, like all children who are passively cruel.

Once working at the Core, he found out how much he disdained orderly conduct and organization. He was brought on for his adeptness at taking complex machinery apart, at dividing theories into equal bite-sized sections that even the lowest scoring graduate could figure out. Seeing the big picture was too tiring. Reducing things to their basest form was just easier and less of a hassle. The doctor had been impressed, at first. But Sans didn't like compiling what he learned, didn't like forming it all up again to show what he knew. The parts were all here, weren't they? Figure it out yourself.

His carelessness showed in multiple, destructive ways. A few quick scribbles on what was practically toilet paper and Sans thought it served well enough as material for his weekly reports. The doctor had not approved, and Sans had responded by dumping his reports in water and trashing it in the doc's office at night so that it would be nice and dry and delightfully crusty in the morning. The doc was thorough though, and even after once erasing three months of work by breaking the casks of solutions, and nearly ruining his own skull with the way the acid had splattered everywhere, threatening corrosion for all solid objects, living or not – the doctor kept Sans on.

It took the engraving of routine, daily rituals, and the knowledge that yes, things have consequences and one should always look toward the future… that Sans finally made progress. Small dissertations, maybe a lecture or two, and sometimes even a bit of field work; and the variety was enough to make Sans learn to be appreciative. Lessons are never too late, and leave more lasting effects than most people realize.

Even when the whole team, including the doc, had vanished from reality, taking Sans' memories with them until there was nothing but drilled holes in his head, the lessons stayed. He transferred them to Papyrus who kept his brother steady with loud and hopeful dreams, who forgave a weary nod or a careless pun. He'd watch Papyrus make his confounding puzzles, and be reminded of how the world was usually set into patterns, repeating or alternating, but always coming to an expected conclusion if one just shifted the pieces just right. Look at it like that, and maybe there was meaning to be found.

The machine was too broken to fix though. Sans hadn't made it any better, nearly ripping the internal parts from their sockets, cracking apart motherboards like kindling, not understanding why this was here or why the emptiness inside his head wouldn't stop whistling. But storms always passed, and he tried his skeletal hands at repair, stitching up wires and faulty electronic chips. The doc hadn't been successful. Why would Sans have made any difference? Honestly, it's just easier to take things apart. To keep cutting into it until virtually nothing was left.

The flower had figured out that truth. But it only did those things to fill its loneliness. It murdered monsters for a chance at finding something new or ideal, which was its first mistake. When you bring things down to its knees, you don't go searching for answers to the big questions. You take them down because it was simple, and everything is better in its simplicity. You learn to realize that the nothingness was valuable all on its own.

"I just want things to go away," the flower had once told him. The words stayed imprinted, even if the actual memory was gone. But Sans could imagine how he had stood over that plant with its petals covered over with chalky dust, his finger bones splayed to wrench it apart again.

"do you now?" Sans felt he had asked. The flower wasn't that dedicated. It was cruel, and had no cognitive impulse for empathy, but it was indecisive. Combined that with the repeating murder of his brother, (what a meaningful pattern, heh) and Sans was pretty tired of it.

The human took things apart as well. Except…

They didn't gloat.

They didn't taunt.

They didn't linger.

Instead they took everything down, acknowledged the speckles of dust in their most intrinsic, meaningless form, and went on their way. All they had was impulse. All they had was instinct. The human didn't search for reason, only in how they could _keep going._

Sans had waited and judged, watching the world he knew, cut off from real stars and real sunshine, dwindle away. The caverns emptied, the air grew stale. As the human passed, the world was broken down into their elements. The monsters became nothing more than lint. No right or wrong, but just for simplicity's sake. Because in that simplicity, there was strength.

With their shiny new knife, and their heart-shaped pendant, the human had marched across golden tiles, already perusing in how it could all be broken down and scattered into the blackness.

Sans never had it in him to go that far. But sometimes, he dreamed. His skull would be coated in sweat when he woke, as if he had drowned and never quite escaped. Who knows? Maybe the doc had been wrong about him all along.

"you ready?" he asked the human, prepared for their calm, vacuous smile.

All that existed was impulse. Sans let himself go down that river, into the void of baselessness. _Just focus on the moving parts,_ he thought.

 _ **And take them down.**_


End file.
